


all the good girls go to hell

by rosietyler



Series: the one adventure he could never have [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25264126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosietyler/pseuds/rosietyler
Summary: On one of Rose's jumps, she meets Martha Jones.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Series: the one adventure he could never have [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910116
Comments: 9
Kudos: 76





	all the good girls go to hell

**Author's Note:**

> hi so this little plot idea kept nagging at me until i wrote it. it's a bit canon divergent, but i love it. the title is of course the billie eilish song, but it has no reference to the actual plot. i was just listening to the song when i wrote the fic, and now i can’t imagine it being named anything else. ❤️

** all the good girls go to hell **

Martha is walking home one night when it happens.

It's been a rough couple of weeks at work. Rougher than she can remember being at UNIT; they are preparing a raid on the ATMOS factory, now more concerned than ever aliens are behind the cutting-edge green technology. They don't know what the aliens are doing with the tech, but Martha's gut instinct from her time travelling amongst the stars are telling her it can't be good. Aliens are _never_ on Earth for a good reason. 

Hence why Martha's perfectly working car is sitting parked outside her flat, as it has been for the last month. The ATMOS system attached to it's exhaust means she won't touch it with a bargepole, and has now surrendered herself to the horror of public transport.

She's lost in her own thoughts as she's walking round the corner from the Tube station to her flat. They're in the final stages of planning the raid on the factory, and she knows it's only a matter of time before General Mace asks her to contact the Doctor. He's dropped a more than few hints over the planning period that they may need his help on this one, especially if the aliens turn out to be hostile (she'd scoffed at the 'if' in the meeting, had to turn it into a cough).

She doesn't really know what she'd say to him if she called him up on the mobile she'd purposefully left in the TARDIS for this exact reason. _"Hey, Doctor, how are you? Keeping well? I work for UNIT now and we need your help?"_

That's probably exactly what she's gonna say.

She's walking past the alley beside her flat building, trying to figure out what he'll say when she tells him she's working for UNIT, when the alley fills up with a bright blue light and a crackling sound.

She runs towards it without even thinking.

The light fades as quickly as it had started; it takes a moment for Martha's eyes to readjust to the dark.

A woman is curled up, back against the brick wall of the alley. Her blonde hair hangs in front of her face, so Martha can't see her face. She's small, looks even smaller as she's curled up in the foetal position on the damp ground.

"You alright?" she calls down the alley, and the woman groans softly. Martha walks more confidently up to her than she ever would have done two years ago. She squats down in front of her, her eyebrows knitted together. There's not any remnant of the beam that filled up the alley, so she's not entirely sure what it was. She hadn't encountered anything quite like that on her travels. "Can you sit up for me?" she asks the woman, the medic in her taking precedent over her curiosity.

The woman moves, and Martha rocks back on her heels to let her sit up. The woman brushes her short blonde hair back from her face, and Martha can see her face. She's young, younger than her, but she has a long scrape along the right side of her face, and there is a substantial amount of blood dripping from a sizeable gash on her forehead. More than Martha's medical training is comfortable leaving her with.

She obviously hit the ground hard when she arrived by whatever beam it was; or, when she was knocked over by the whatever the beam was.

"Hi," Martha says gently. "I'm Martha. What's your name?"

The woman shakes her head in response, then cries out. She goes to clutch her head but winces as her hand makes contact, bringing her hand in front of her face; she stares, confused at the blood on it.

Martha makes a decision.

(When she thinks about it later, she knows that she didn't really think about it at all, that it was all pure instinct, that there was something drawing her to this woman).

"My name is Martha," she repeats, talking slowly. "You've had a bad knock to the head. I'm a doctor," - the woman's head lifts up sharply - "and I live just in the flats over there." She points to the building next to them. "I'm going to take you to my flat and we can sort your head out."

The woman shakes her head a little, but flinches again; Martha sighs.

"Not taking no for an answer," she says, and helps the woman up; she goes without much complaint, but Martha thinks that might be on account of her head injury rather than general compliance. 

The walk back to her flat is slow, and Martha finds herself taking more and more of the woman's weight; she's smaller than Martha, but stockier, with more muscle. She's clearly in good physical condition. It must have been some beam to knock her out. The traveller and investigator in Martha that was unearthed during her travels in the TARDIS desperately wants to ask about that beam, but it's clear the woman is in no state to talk just now.

It's a struggle with taking most of this woman's weight but eventually Martha digs out her flat key from her pocket and opens the door. She manhandles the woman through the door and onto the sofa, and the woman all but collapses onto it, lets her head thunk against the back of the sofa. Martha immediately heads to the bathroom and gets her first aid kit she stashed in there for all UNIT scrapes and skirmishes.

Some of the light is coming back into the woman's eyes as Martha kneels down in front of her, taking her face in her hands and wiping the cut deftly. The woman doesn't wince, but makes eye contact for the first time. "What's your name?" Martha asks again, but the woman shakes her head again. Martha doesn't press for now. A quick look in her eyes reassures her the woman doesn't have a concussion, so it might be a case of letting her get her head straight.

She makes swift work cleaning up the scrape and cut and places a medium-sized dressing over the cut on the woman's forehead. "The cut is clean and I've put a dressing on it, it should do for now. And the scrape I'm afraid will just have to heal it it's own time," she says, closing her first aid kit. "I'll get you some painkillers for your head."

Martha leaves the woman on the sofa, and walks into her small kitchen. She gets some paracetamol out of the cupboard, gets her a glass of water. She flicks on the kettle also, thinking that maybe a nice cup of tea will get her relaxed enough to begin talking.

She takes a moment to thank the stars that Tom is in Africa.

"Here," she says as she enters the living room once more, placing the glass beside the woman on the couch. She's sitting up a little better, Martha notices, and some of the colour has come back to her face. She places the paracetamol next to her. "Have these, it'll make your head feel much better."

The woman nods, takes the glass and the painkillers and downs them. She drains the glass fully.

"Thanks," she says quietly, the first time she's spoken. Her accent is London, south, Martha thinks. She's not posh by any matter of means.

"You're welcome," Martha says. "I'm making tea. It'll help. How do you take it?"

The woman looks up. "Um. Milk, two sugars. Thanks."

Martha nods, goes back into the kitchen and is reminded of the times she made the Doctor tea on the TARDIS, as he also took his tea with milk and two sugars. She hasn't made tea like that since, since she takes her black with no sugars. She carries the cups carefully through the the living room, placing the milky tea beside the woman and taking the armchair beside her. "Look, I don't mean to pressure you, but can you remember anything about that beam of light? I found you nearly unconscious after it had gone. Did it hurt you?"

The woman's eyebrows knit together. "Did it hurt me?"

"Apart from your head, I mean," Martha corrects herself. "Did the beam take you into that alley? Were you somewhere else before you were in the alley? I know it's confusing, and it can take a little time to wrap your head around, but it'll help me get you back where you're supposed to be."

The woman's eyebrows are still tight in a frown.

"Who are you?" she asks.

"My name is Martha Jones," Martha replies, taking a sip of her tea. "And I'd really help if you could tell me who you are."

"You're not asking the right questions," the woman continues as if Martha hasn't spoken. "You don't seem shocked about a beam in an alley."

"I work for UNIT," Martha responds with a shrug of her shoulder, and the woman nods as if she understands.

"Ah," she says. "Can I ask - where and when am I?"

"London. 12th March, 2008."

"Too early," the woman mutters to herself before she looks up at Martha. "Has the ATMOS invasion happened yet?"

Martha's gentle and friendly gaze narrows into something suspicious. "What do you know about ATMOS?"

"Definitely too early," the woman says again, and rummages in her pocket; she brings out a small device, yellow and circular, with a button in the middle. She presses the button, but nothing happens. "It's dead."

"What is it?" Martha asks, nodding at the device.

"Transport," she answers, turning it this way and that. "Can I use your bathroom?" she says abruptly, standing up. She sways where she stands a little.

"Watch yourself," Martha chides gently, holding out an arm to steady her. "And of course. It's the second door on the left. Are you okay to get there yourself?"

The woman nods. "Yeah, I'll be alright," she says, and she exits the room on shaky legs. Martha sighs, collecting their cups and putting the kettle on for another. She needs it after this day, and although she'd normally be reaching for a glass of red wine at this point in the evening, she thinks having a clear head would be a benefit tonight. Tea it is.

She can hear the woman talking to herself through the paper-thin walls. She sounds like she's having one side of a conversation, and Martha wonders if she's phoning someone for help.

She brings the tea back through, sitting down in the armchair again just as the woman walks back in.

"I made more tea," Martha says, nodding to the cup lightly steaming beside the sofa. "It'll help get your strength up a little."

The woman nods, and sits down, taking the mug in hand.

"Did you phone someone?" Martha asks lightly. The woman looks up from her tea with a sharp look. "Sorry, I didn't hear anything, I promise. Just heard you talking. Walls are pretty thin. Is someone coming to get you?"

"Not for a while," the woman answers carefully. "You work for UNIT, you said?"

Martha nods. "Yes."

"So you've met aliens?"

Martha laughs. "Quite a few."

The woman smiles at that, and tucks her hair behind her ears; Martha is struck by how young this woman looks.

"How do you know about UNIT?" Martha asks, sipping her tea like she's not dying to know who this woman is and how she came to here.

"Had a few run-ins with them now," the woman responds. "I can't get home. My dimenson jumper has burnt out, we don't know what's happened to it, and that is my transport in and out of here. The light, you saw? It's a kind of transmat beam."

"Transmat beam?" Martha watches her nod. "No wonder your head was scrambled."

"UNIT's dealt with them then?" the woman asks.

Martha stills, frowning a little. "Not really," she answers, choosing her words very carefully. Only a few knew of her connection the Doctor, and she was insistent that it wasn't something that was banded around the place. "I went - travelling. For a while. Before I started at UNIT."

The woman's eyes are wide and large now. "Travelling?" she asks. There is almost a note of hysteria in her voice. "What kind of travelling?"

The tone of her voice tells Martha she doesn't mean Thailand.

Martha sits up straighter, and it almost looks like a stand-off now; both woman as tense as could be, eyeing each other up.

"You know the Doctor?" Martha asks, barely breathing.

The woman laughs, loud, half harsh and half relief. "Yes!"

Martha's stunned. "Sorry?"

"I've got the correct universe!" The woman is laughing now, and Martha's unsure if the bump to the head wasn't more serious than she'd thought previously. "Well, that look a while."

"You know the Doctor?" Martha asks again, taking in everything that she knows so far. Blonde, young, knows the Doctor, travelling through Universes ....

"I'm _looking_ for the Doctor," the woman says, her eyes bright. "Oh, I've come so far, but it's too early. So much is still to happen. Timelines are important," she continues, looking buoyant even though she is rambling. "Can't be too early, the structure of the timeline must be preserved."

Martha _knows._ She does, but she has to be sure. She summons up every single piece of courage she ever gained, from fighting Daleks to facing off with the Family, to ask one question.

"Are - " Martha swallows. "Rose?"

The woman's jaw drops.

"Sorry?" she says, and she looks like her brain has skittered offline.

Martha can’t stop the gasp that escapes her. "You're Rose," she breathes, almost confirming it to herself. The woman - _Rose's_ \- reaction had told her everything. "Rose Tyler. The actual Rose Tyler. In the flesh." At Rose’s quizzical look, Martha rolls her eyes jokingly. "He spoke about you. A lot."

Rose blushes; tucks her hair behind her ears.

Martha has had many months to wonder what Rose Tyler would look like, how she would talk, how she would think. She never imagined she would be so _young_. And so - ordinary. But clearly she wasn't ordinary, if the Doctor had loved her as much as Martha had seen, she must be someone extraordinary, disguised as a normal human you'd see on the street.

"Oh my god," Martha says, remembering a key fact about Rose that made her abandon her tea to the side. "You're trapped in a parallel world; how did you get here?!"

"My universe runs ahead of time," Rose explains. "In my universe, the stars are going out. But in this universe, none of that has happened yet. But the stars going out on our side of the void has weakened the walls of the universe so much that we can - well, we can kind of batter our way through with these." She holds her circular device in her hands.

"What, you literally punch a hole in the wall of the universe?" Martha eyes the device.

Rose nods.

"Oh, he's gonna _kill_ you when he finds out," Martha says, and Rose laughs.

"Yeah, he probably will," she says, shrugging a shoulder. "But we need him. My universe is literally crumbling, and it's only a matter of time before this one does as well. He has to know that it's all worlds and not just this one."

"I can phone him," Martha thinks suddenly, holding up her mobile. "I left my old phone in the TARDIS so I could get a hold of him if something like this was to happen, I can just call him back here!"

Rose looks at the phone with an expression that Martha would have described as _longing._

"You can't," she says, shaking her head. Her gaze is still hungrily on the phone in Martha's hand. "I want to - oh, believe me, there is nothing I would like to do more - but timelines. They're so important. So much has still to happen. Because once he sees me again it's all going to kick off and it has to happen at the right time. It has to. I can't be mucking around with time."

"Okay," Martha says. She puts the phone down.

"That must be why I ended up here," Rose wonders aloud, as Martha attempts to keep up. "I mean, I could have ended up anywhere in this universe and instead, I ended up in alley beside your house. The dimension cannon must have known it was malfunctioning, gone onto Emergency Mode and locked onto the largest source of Artron energy it could find! Which was you! Genius," she finishes, and Martha can't help but notice she even _sounds_ like the Doctor.

"Artron energy?"

"It's like background radiation," Rose explains. "Everyone who travels in the TARDIS picks it up, it's harmless, it's literally just _there_. But some people - the Daleks, for example - evolved so they could use it as a power source. We developed the Dimension Cannon to find the Doctor, it uses my TARDIS key as a sort of homing beacon. But we had to have a failsafe in case something like this happened, so it's backup was to lock onto any source of Artron energy - "

"As they would hopefully lead you to the Doctor," Martha finishes, and Rose nods. "Wow, that's clever."

Rose blushes.

"I can't get home, the Cannon has malfunctioned," she notes. "It'll take them a few hours to get it back online. That's who I was speaking to in the bathroom."

"You're staying here until then. Let Rose Tyler wander around with no supervision? After the Doctor kills you over those jumper thingies, then he'd come and kill me. Twice. You're staying. No questions necessary."

"I like you, Martha Jones," Rose says, grinning widely. "Although - I don't know about you - but I'm starving."

"Not got much in, to be honest. I could get some chips in?" Martha asks, and Rose's grin gets even wider.

"Sounds good to me!"

* * *

"Tell me about your adventures in the TARDIS," Rose says as they unpack the chips back at Martha's flat. "Where did you meet the Doctor?"

"Oh, where do I start? Well, I met him at work - "

"He didn't blow up your job, did he? He's got previous for that." They wandered back into the living room and sat down where they had been sitting earlier.

Martha laughs. "No, but it did go to the Moon and was held there by the Judoon?" At Rose's blank look, she frowns as she tried to picture the Judoon. "They were these like space rhinos." Rose laughs. "No, I'm being serious! They were like rhinos, in space suit, that could talk."

"Oh my god no, I believe you," Rose giggles, smothering her chips in vinegar. She suddenly stops, hand halfway through passing the bottle of vinegar to Martha. "Wait - you worked at Royal Hope Hospital?"

"Yeah," Martha says, taking the bottle from her. "I was a medical student there when I met the Doctor. How did you know?"

Rose sighs, hanging her head. "In my universe, I was dispatched alongside my team to help deal with the aftermath, when the hospital came back down to Earth. No Doctor in my universe. Everyone inside the Hospital was dead when it came back. Oxygen starvation."

"Oh my god," Martha says, and she puts her chip that is halfway to her mouth down. "That's - that's horrible."

"That's the Doctor for you. He saves _everyone_ , all the time. Only no-one really knows about it."

"Apart from us," Martha says, and Rose grins at her.

"Apart from us. So, come on, what else did you see? I have seen some stuff in my time that is just - mental."

"I met Shakespeare," Martha offers.

"Really? I met Charles Dickens," Rose says. "What was Shakespeare like?"

Martha frowns a little. "Really flirty," she says, to Rose's roaring laughter. "With everyone, even the Doctor!"

"Oh my god, I can picture it now!" Rose manages to get a hold of her laughter, wiping a tear from her eye.

"What about Dickens?" Martha asks, and Rose shrugs.

"Kinda grumpy. Very cynical," she says. "All in all, sounds like you had the better deal!"

"Did you meet the Daleks?" Martha asks, and Rose loses some of the colour in her face.

"Yeah. Three times, actually. They're the reason I was trapped on a parallel universe."

"I'm so sorry," Martha says, her voice full of genuine sorrow. "I met them, in New York in 1930. There was only 4 of them though, and they were doing some kind of human-Dalek experiment."

"The Cult of Skaro?" Rose asks, and Martha nods. "They survived. They always survive."

"That's what the Doctor said, too," Martha notes.

"Don't wanna talk about them," Rose shakes her head. "Old news. Tell me more about your adventures."

They polish off the chips to Martha talking about New Earth - _'sorry, it genuinely was a lovely place up top! If you ignore the cat nuns, that is ...'_ \- and of 1969.

She doesn't mention the Family, or the Master. Some stories weren't hers to tell.

Rose counters with her own story of New Earth, of meeting werewolves and Slitheen in Downing Street.

"He was behind that?!" Martha crows, laughing. "Of course he was. I could have bloody well guessed."

The chips are long since gone and Martha is growing tired when a beeping comes from Rose's person. She digs out her yellow jumping device which is the source of the beeping. She presses a button that silences it.

"It's recharged and online," she says for Martha's benefit.

"That didn't take long for them to fix," Martha wonders aloud.

"Time runs faster in our universe," Rose explains. "We've only been here hours, but they've probably been working on this all week."

Martha shakes her head. "Funnily enough, out of everything I've seen and did, that is the weirdest thing to wrap my head around."

Rose chuckles. "Takes a while to figure it out," she agrees. She stands up. "I've got to go."

Martha knew she did. But she was reluctant to let her go. "I don't want you to go," she finds herself saying. "Not without him knowing you were here. I mean, if he knew I knew and didn't tell him! If I just phoned him, he could have been here hours ago. He'd drop _anything._ He loves you, so much. He'd probably drop saving any world he was on if he only _knew_ \- "

"He can't," Rose whispers, traitorous tears dripping down her face. "Not until it's his time. You'll know when, the darkness is coming."

"I'll wait for it," Martha says, enveloping her new friend in a warm hug. Remembering all those times she spoke (or thought) ill of Rose made her feel sick. "I'll wait and I'll fight, right alongside you. You have my word."

"Thank you, Martha," Rose says, wiping tears from her eyes. "I'm so thankful I ended up here. Thank you, for taking care of me. For talking care of him, when I couldn't."

Martha's crying herself now, and she laughs as she wipes the tears from her face. "Of course."

"Oh, and Martha?" Rose asks. "If you see him again, before the darkness - he cannot know this ever happened. He must only know about me being here when the darkness comes. Not a moment before."

"I understand," Martha nods, given up on wiping away the tears. "I'm so glad I met you, Rose Tyler."

"And I too, Martha Jones," she responds, and in a beam of light identical to the one that brought her here, she is gone.

Martha stands for a minute in her front room, staring at the spot where her friend vanished. She wipes the tears from her eyes and tidies up the remnants of their dinner and tea, wondering how her day went from stressful to emotional in the blink of an eye. A glance at her phone tells her it's past three in the morning - she should get some rest for tomorrow.

Her fingers itch towards the Doctor's contact details. But she knows she can't, she can't risk the results if she brought Rose into the Doctor's timeline too early.

She goes to sleep praying the two are reunited.

A month and a half later, she gets the nod from General Mace; it's time to contact the Doctor, to initiate the raid on the ATMOS factory. And he comes, with Donna, swirling around in his brown coat and solving the mysteries left right and centre.

And all the time, it's on the tip of her tongue; Rose. She's coming for you.

She stays silent.

(She's thankful the Sontaran clone also does not speak a word of it).

And three months after that, she is in New York, promoted quickly on account of her actions during the Sontaran invasion. She sees the Dalek ships in the sky above the Manhattan skyline and she _knows._ This is it. She has one thought.

_Find us, Rose. Find him. Now._

She ends up in Germany, in the Osterhagen Station One. She holds up the Osterhagen key and she threatens the Daleks. The Doctor comes on screen, asking how the hell she got a hold of something like that. Her ire spikes.

"Don't argue with me, Doctor! Because it's more than that. I reckon the Daleks need these 27 planets for something. But what if becomes 26? What happens then? Daleks? Would you risk it?"

"Ooh, she's good!" A voice comes from his side, and the screen Martha can see the Doctor on widens a little.  
  
And there she is. Standing next to him, where she should be.

She winks at Martha, barely noticeable. And Martha knows what she's saying. _Play dumb._

"Who's that?" she asks.

"My name's Rose," Rose answers, smiling up at her. _They did it._ "Rose Tyler."

"Oh, my god," Martha says, and she doesn't need to act astounded or in awe of the woman in front of her. She already is. "She found you."

The Doctor frowns. Rose beams. Martha feels like crying.

And then all hell breaks loose.


End file.
